The collaboration, announced Tuesday (Aug. 5), is aimed at promoting more personalized dining experiences at restaurants using Toast’s technology along with the guestbook capabilities of Resy and Tock, both American Express (Amex) companies.
Amex and Toast will also explore ways to use Toast capabilities to guest and American Express card member experiences.
“Restaurants today deliver exceptional experiences with leaner teams and tighter margins, making intelligent, connected tools more essential than ever,” Pablo Rivero, senior vice president of American Express Global Dining and CEO of Resy and Tock, said in a news release.
“American Express and Toast together can help our partners deliver smarter service and more meaningful connections with their guests to drive both loyalty and growth.”
This partnership also aims to offer restaurants, wineries, cafes, and bars greater visibility by making their listings from Resy and Tock available on the Local by Toast app, as well as those using Toast Tables.
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American Express acquired Tock last year, along with Roaam, a company that offers technology for ordering, mobile payments, ordering and integrations with point of sale, marketing and loyalty systems at restaurants, bars, stadiums and arenas.
Tock is a reservation, table and event management technology provider launched in 2014, whose tools in thousands of restaurants, wineries and other bookable venues. These acquisitions followed Amex’s purchase of Resy in 2019.
Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has shown that while consumers value personalization, companies’ efforts to provide it often fall short.
Although 83% of consumers said they were receptive to personalized offers, just 44% found them “very relevant” to their needs, with 17% calling them “completely irrelevant.” In addition, personalization of offers can be a more persuasive method of selling than the discount amount.
“Personalization has long been a digital promise that’s failed to fully deliver,” Ja-Naé Duane, lecturer at Brown University and research fellow at MIT CISR, told PYMNTS last month. “We’ve been told for decades that our clicks would unlock tailored experiences, but if you’ve ever scratched your head at a bizarre Netflix recommendation, you know we’re not quite there yet.”
That could be changing, Duane said, as the latest AI systems go beyond rule-based segmentation toward real-time learning and contextual awareness.
“Today’s systems don’t just track what we do; they infer how we feel,” Duane said. “They shift tone mid-conversation, rewrite content on the fly, and evolve as our needs change.” She also acknowledged AI systems’ limitations. “True personalization is a moving target because human desire is fluid, contextual and often contradictory.”
